The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-11-02

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You viii be discharged from prison.
Bless God that you have brain to think,
and hands to work, and feet to walk
with, for in your constant activity, o
young man, is one Of your strongest de-
fenses. Put your trust in God and do
your level best. That child had it right
when the horses ran away with the load
of wood ard he sat upon it. When asked
if he was frightened, he said: ..No, /
prayed TO God and hung on like a
beaver"
Again, profound respect for the Sab
bath viii be to the young man power
full preservative against evil. God has
thrust into the toll and fatigue of life
recreative day, when the soul is espe-
ciaIlv TO be fed. 1t is no new tangled no
ton Of wild Drained reformer, but an
institution established at the beginning.
God has made natural and moral laws
50 harmonious that the body as well as
the soul demands this institution. Our
bodies are seven day clocks, that must be
wound up as often as that, or they viii
run down. Failure must come sooner or
later to the man who breaks the Sabbath.
Inspiration has called it the Lord s day,
guilty of robbery. God viii not let the
sin go UNPUBLISHED either in this world or
the world to come. This is the statement
Of a man who had broken this divine en-
actTnent:
Il was engaged in manufacturing on
the Lehigh river. On the Sabbath / used
to rest. but never regarded God in it.
One beautiful Sabbath, when the noise
was all hushed, and the day was all that
loveliness could make it, sat down on
my piazza and went to work inventing n
new shuttle. / neither stopped to eat
nor drink till the sun went down. By
that time had the invention completed.
The next morning l exhibited it, bOasted
of my days work, and was applauded.
The shuttle was tried and worked well,
but that Sabbath days work cost me
$50, 600. We branched out and en-
larged. and the curse of heaven was upon
me from that day onward.
While the divine frown must rest upon
him who tramples upon this statute,
Gods special favor will be upon that
young man who scrupulously observes it
This day, properly observed, will throw
a hallowed influence over all the week.
The song. and sermon, and sanctuary
will hold back from presumptuous scenes.
That young man who begins the duties of
life with either secret or open disrespect
of the holy day, l venture to prophesy,
viii meet with no prominent successes.
Gods curse will fall upon his ship, his
store, his Office, his studio, his body, and
his soul. The way Of the wicked he
turneth upside down. In one of the old
fables it was said that wonderful child
was born in Bagdad, and a magician
could hear his footsteps 6, 900 miles away.
But I can hear in the footsteps of that
young man, on his way to the house of
worship this morning, step not only OF a
lifetime of usefulness, but the coming
step of eternal joys of heavens yet mill
ions of miles away.
Again, a noble ideal and confident ex-
pectation Of approximating to it, will in
falliblv advance. The artist completes in
his mind the great thought that he wishes
to transfer to the canvas or the marble
before he takes up the crayon or the
chisel. The architect plans out the en-
tire structure before he orders the work
men to begin, and though there may for
a long time seem to be nothing but
mind every Corinthian wreath and Gothic
arch and Byzantine capital. The poet
alranges the entire plot before he begins
to chime the first Canto of hngling
rhythms. And yet, stranger to us, there
are men who attempt to build their char
acter without knowing whether in the
end it shall be a rude traitors den
or a st. Marks of Venice. Men who
begin to write the intricate poem of
their lives without knowing whether
it shall be Homer's Odyssey, or a
rhymester's botch. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine men out of a thousand are
living without any great life plot.
Booted, and spurred, and plumed, and
urging their swift courses in the hottest
haste. | come out and ask: s'Halloo,
man, whittier away" His response is:
Nowhere. Rush into the busy shop or
store of many a one, and taking the
plane out of a mans hand, and laying
down the yard stick, say: "What, man,
is all this about, SC much stir and sweat?"
The reply will stumble and break down
between teeth and lips. Every day S
duty ought only to be the following up
of the main plan of existence. Let men
be consistent. If they prefer misdeeds
| to correct courses of action, then let thOm
draw out the design of knavery, ard
cruelty, and plumber. Let every day s
| falsehood and wrong doing be added as
| coloring to the picture. Let bloody deeds
| red stripe the canvas, and the clouds of a
wrathful God hang down heavily over
| the canvas, ready to break out in clamor-
Gus tempest. Let the waters be chafed,
a froth tangle and green with immeasur-
able depths. Then take torch of burn
| ing pitch and scorch into the frame of
! the picture the right name for it;
| namely, the Souls Suicide. If one
entering upon sinful directions would
i only in his mind, or on paper,
| draw out in awful reality this
| dreadful future, he would recoil from
| it, and say: ''Am / Dante, that
by my own life / should write another
| Inferno?" But if you are resolved to live
life such as God and good men will APP
| prove, do not let it be a vague dream, an
| indefinite determination, but in your mind
or upon paper sketch it in all its minutie.
You cannot know the changes to which
you may be subjected, but you may know
what always will be right and always
|
charity, and veracity, and faith stand in
| the heart of the sketch. On some still
brook S bank make a lamb and lion lie
down together. Draw two or three of
the trees of life, not frost stricken, nor
ice glazed, nor wind stripped, but with
thick verdure waving like the palms of
heaven. On the darkest cloud place the
rainbow, that billow of the dying storm.
| You need not burn the title on the frame.
The dullest will catch the design at a
| glance, and say: That is the road to
heaven. All. mel On this sea of life
what innumerable ships, heavily laden
and well rugged, yet some bound for an
other port. Swept every whittier of wind
and wave, they go up by the mountains,
| they go down by the pillows, and are at
their wits end. They sail by no chart,
| they watch no star. they long for no har-
| Dor. beg every young man today to
draw out sketch of what, by the grace
of God, he means to be, though in excel
lence so high that you cannot reach it.
| He who starts out in life with high
| ideal of character. and faith in its attain
| ment, will find himself incased from a
thousand temptations.
AAo 81 nias AiAAieeAl pOrslpuitieS DC
| fore each of you young men of the stout
heart, and the buoyant step. and the
bounding spirit. I would marshal you
for grand achievement. God now pro-
vides for you the fleet, and the ar1nor,
and the Notifications: who is on the
Lords side? The captain of the zouaves
IN ancient times, to encourage them
against the immense odds on the side of
their enemies, said: Come, my men,
look these fellows in the face. They are
5000, you are 800. Surely the match
is even" That speech gave them the
victory. Be not. my nearer. dismayed
at any time by what seems an immense
odds against you. Is fortune, is want of
education, are men, are devils against
you, though the multitudes of earth and
ts..ll 60. ss;..ss+